Behind the Scenes of The Brain Show

by Zeev Nitsan

  The state of not-being after death is similar to the state of not-being before we are born; both last forever, assuming time has no beginning and no end.

  In a fable from the Middle Ages, our life is compared to a bird that comes from darkness and frost and flies into a warm, illuminated dance hall full of tables, filled with delicacies, and pleasant sounds of music. After a short time at the dance hall, which is compared to the duration of our life, she flies to a window at the other side of the hall, goes out to the frozen darkness, and has no option of ever coming back.

  Our life is immersed in “nothing” on both ends; before our development as an embryo we do not exist, and after our death we do not exist, as well. The boundaries of our existence, at both ends, are nonexistence. The eternity that is ahead of us before we are born, however, is like a deep whale, at the bottom of which there is the water of life and at the other end the eternity that awaits us after our death, like a dark tunnel with no light at the end.

  The conceptual evasiveness of time forces us to conceptualize it by means of material objects, like the hands of the clock or the pages of the calendar.

  Activities that take a known period of time to perform sometimes serve as time markers, which help us estimate time’s passing. Sherlock Holmes once estimated the difficulty of a detective task, in retrospect, according to the number of pipes he smoked from the beginning of the investigation until its end. An example of macabre time estimation is the story of a doctor who was asked by a terminal patient how much time he had left. The doctor said, “I don’t recommend that you start reading War and Peace.”

  We rely on the dimension of space as a major time conceptualizer; according to our senses, as they are expressed in language, yesterday stays behind whereas the future is ahead.

  The close connection between time and space in our consciousness is reflected in an experiment in which subjects were asked to think about the past and the future. It turned out that the position of the bodies of the ones who thought about the past tilted backward, whereas the ones who were asked to think about the future tended to bend forward.

  The metaphor of time as a dimension in space is built in in our perception.

  The direction of writing, which has clear spatial rules in the different languages, is also wired in our brain as a marker of the directionality of the arrow of time. So, when asked to describe a sequence of events, traditional Mandarin speakers tend to place past events at the top of a vertical sequence from the right (traditional Chinese is written from top to bottom and from right to left). English speakers will place past events horizontally from the left side, while Arabic and Hebrew speakers will place the events horizontally from the right side.

  We are like candles in the wind of time. During childhood we look at the horizon expectantly, and when we grow up we look back from “the residence of the horizon” and often taste the bitter taste of missing. Then we realize more strongly that time is our most precious resource, since we do not know what time will bring in light of our ephemeral materiality. Temporariness is built into our life forever.

  Time wears us out unmercifully, and it unbiasedly transfers all of us from this world to the next world while the clock is ticking in the background.

  In a spirit of philosophical humor, it was said that time is just God’s way of making sure that not everything happens at once (George Carlin). In the language of poets, time pacers were compared to a lover who chose his lover’s lips out of all the hands of all the clocks in the world to show him when his time to go came.

  Our brain copes with time in its personal aspect and in its public–historical aspect.

  The imaginative ability of our brain is incarcerated behind the walls of our world of concepts, which was shaped according to the culture in which we were brought up and confined by the memes we were exposed to. We find it extremely hard to perceive the notion of eternity.

  Galileo felt the burning breath of the ecclesiastical establishment on the back of his neck when he contemplated metaphysical issues, but even Galileo, after racking his brain about it in vain, could not decipher one of the perceptional oddities related to the concept of eternity. The infinite series of whole numbers (1, 2, 3, 4…) and the infinite series of whole even numbers (2, 4, 6, 8…)—it seems that both series last endlessly, but isn’t the one wholly contained in the other, and isn’t its size double?

  In studies in which subjects were asked to assess how distant from them were past or future periods of time, it was found that the representation of time in our consciousness is not symmetrical: a period of time in the future is usually perceived as closer than a period of time in the past, which is, in fact, identical to it. A possible explanation for this phenomenon derives from the fact that the time gap between past and present is “full of” memories that “stretch” the psychological time perception, while the time gap between present and future lacks any memories and so “shortens” our psychological time perception.

  A “polychronic” (multitemporal) time perception, in which the time frame is not strict, was named in the past, stigmatically, “female time.” On the other hand, monochromic (monotemporal) time, experienced as an oriented flow toward future goals, used to be referred to as “male time.” These stigmatic suppositions assumed that women are focused on the “existence zones” of the present, and a tendency toward the “promising zones” of the future was ascribed to men.

  Many believe that the nullifying of consciousness that involves death becomes a fact that remains valid forever.

  The notion of eternity and concepts of nonexistence that involve death are built into “consciousness mines.” Human consciousness has a hard time conceptualizing them and dealing with them. It has never encountered them and never will, since, in a state of nonexistence, our consciousness will not exist, and, due to its finality, eternity is far away from it as eternity.

  Eternal nonexistence is a conceptual course that is probably inaccessible to the metaphorical feet of our consciousness.

  Chrono-architecture

  Our brain maps are liquid and ever changing. The constant changing of representation areas of cognitive, behavioral, and motor skills is based on the liquidity in the connections between the neurons as much as the networking pattern between them is at the base of the skill. The changing takes place both in the time dimension and the spatial dimension.

  The absolute majority of brain-mapping studies have been conducted so far with respect to the place in which things happen (the spatial component) and not in relation to the timing in which the action pattern exists (the time component).

  Tracing the brain activity pattern on the axis of time (chrono-architecture), and not only on the spatial axis (location, structural architecture), is now perceived as essential for a better understanding of the brain’s activity pattern.

  It seems that each brain area that functions as a functional subsystem is managed on the time axis that is unique to it. In other words, a time-dependent activity pattern is unique to each of the areas (a single area processes information within thousandths of a second; the other within hundredths of a second; and so on).

  We can trace the “fingerprint in time” that is unique to the different brain areas by using an imaging method called functional MRI, which enables us to map the brain not only in terms of the place where things are happening but, also, in terms of the timing according to which the activity patterns of the neurons interact.

  Thus, for example, in an attempt to follow the procedure of learning a new motor skill, it was found that at first the most active brain areas are those located at the prefrontal cortex. After about five hours, when the skill is already assimilated, it was found that the brain activity related to the task has immigrated backward in the frontal lobe (to a brain area called the premotor cortex) and to the parietal lobe and the cerebellum, where an infrastructure was consolidated for preserving the motor sequence that was learned.

  The Where and When in the Brain

  Whi
le making observations of the brain, the location provides an answer to the “where” question. The order of activation of various brain areas on the time axis provides an answer to the “when” question (structural architecture and chronoarchitecture).

  According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it is impossible to determine the location of a particle and the speed of its movement at the same time. It is also true for brain examinations—temporary imaging methods enable us to focus on the location component and the temporal component alternately when accuracy, with respect to evaluating one of the components, requires compromising the level of accuracy with respect to evaluating the other component.

  “One Moment, Please”

  Delayed feedback creates a delay that gives the input some “time perspective” to assess the input patterns. This is similar to putting our hand in a bucket full of gravel; we will not be able to identify the nature of the element until we feel the different input patterns of the stones’ texture on the axis of time. This fact relates to the serial nature of senses’ impressions and the threshold that determines what is considered an essential, sufficient input to allow for its reality-compatible conceptualization.

  The tempo of thought, in the sense of the pace in which thought is formed, is a unique characteristic of thought according to its nature. The duration of a “thought beat” is an elusive, heterogeneous variable that depends on the nature of the thought and has not been explained sufficiently by science yet.

  Chrono-architecture and Consciousness in the Mirror of Time

  The system that coordinates attention in our brain seems to work as an oscillator, which becomes a sort of reference clock for multiple internal systems that set their timing according to it. According to one common view, the internal oscillator that allocates attention resources is located at the thalamus nucleuses, but some ascribe this role to the neural network of default.

  The reference oscillator, similar to a punctual cesium clock, orchestrates the brain orchestra with various degrees of control. It seems that, at every given moment, there are “rebellious” brain areas that have a schedule and timing of their own. But the more attentive and focused we are, it seems the more brain areas are calibrated and operate compatibly.

  During sleep, the uniformity of timing becomes looser. Various brain areas become more autonomous and, as a result, the level of attention decreases.

  Descending the stairs of consciousness and the sinking of the consciousness mode decrease both the intensity of illumination and the diameter of the attention beam in accordance with the level of sinking.

  In cases of head injuries followed by loss of consciousness, the central regime fades away, and the various brain areas function as a rabble of autonomous entities.

  Chrono-architecture—the activity pattern on the time axis is a fundamental component in the existence of consciousness.

  The timing of the activity of the bioelectrical action potentials is probably at the basis of consciousness modes, and, according to a central supposition, there is a direct connection between the compatibility of the activity of electrical-action potentials and the level of consciousness. It seems that our consciousness, at its best, resembles a harmonious orchestra.

  In our brain there is a large amount of white noise that is, at times, random and chaotic and lacks a clear, compatible pattern as a result of the uncoordinated activity of various brain areas.

  Various oscillators (pacers of electrical and biochemical activity) operate in the brain simultaneously, not always in synchronization and harmony, which sometimes results in neuronal cacophony. It seems, however, that there is one superoscillator—“the conductor of the orchestra”—that tries to create harmony between the various oscillators as well. According to a common hypothesis, the compatibility of pacemaking (when multiple brain areas are orchestrated and move to the sounds of the same melody) allows for the production of consciousness.

  The pleasant sense of flow, when we feel qualified and succeed in performing a task, might originate from a successful synchronization of brain areas by means of the superoscillator, which allows for the compatibility of the activity in different areas.

  According to certain brain researchers, consciousness is, in fact, the preserving of electrical activity between selected brain cycles at forty hertz oscillation. The involved brain cycles preserve the compatibility of their activity by means of feedback. The coordinated fluctuation creates the magic of consciousness.

  An intriguing hypothesis called “the forty hertz hypothesis” is based on an observation that revealed that, during a conscious eyesight experience, neurons at the posterior cortex are active (and, in the physiological sense, these neurons “shoot” spurts of bioelectrical/electrochemical charge) at a rate of about forty hertz. According to this hypothesis, each fraction of a second (and, more accurately, the 0.025 part of a second) represents a “unified unit of consciousness.” This range of frequencies characterizes gamma-type brain waves.

  Other researchers suggest an oscillation rate of sixty hertz as the “consciousness-generator rhythm.” In the spirit of these hypotheses, the unity of consciousness is a result of synchronized neural activity that persists on the axis of time. Each second of consciousness is composed of forty to sixty “micro-moments” that create a sense of consistency, similar to movies’ frames that, when they are projected at a rate of twenty-four frames or more per second, are perceived as a continuous sight experience. Perhaps this is the source of the saying “Life is like a movie.”

  Some claim that resonance at a fixed oscillation of forty to sixty hertz, paced by a nucleus at the thalamus, is the generator of compatibility that causes unification of the various fragments of input and it is the “rhythm of perception.”

  Another common hypothesis among brain researchers is that the neural network of the default system is the reference oscillator (the Greenwich point of frequencies) whose activity synchronizes and modulates the mix of frequencies in our brain.

  Expanded Consciousness and Memory

  Our consciousness might stretch along the axis of time. “The sense of what is happening” is always affected by the sense of what has happened. The experience of “I am reading this book” carries with it a treasure of enclosed knowledge, derived from a whole life of being you. In this context, it was said that when the painter Pablo Picasso was seventy years old, he was approached by a millionaire who asked him to draw his portrait. Picasso looked at him, sketched for ten minutes, and asked for a quarter of a million dollars for the sketch. The millionaire got upset. “You are asking for a quarter of a million for ten minutes?” Picasso answered, “These are not ten minutes. These are seventy years of Picasso’s life experience plus ten minutes.”

  Chapter 15: Brain Development from Embryo to Adult

  A Beginner’s Brain

  The signature of the electrical activity in the embryonic brain shows that a human embryo’s brain is at a state of sleep 95 percent of the time. This continuous state of sleep is divided into two: active sleep, during which there are movements of breathing, eye movement, and sucking, and a quiet sleep, in which tonic muscle activity takes place but there is no eye movement or movement of breathing. These states are similar, respectively, to rapid-eye-movement sleep, which is the main dream stage of sleep in human brains, and the deep sleep stage that is characterized by low-frequency electrical waves. For the rest of the time, the brain is at a state of transition from one mode of sleep to the other.

  A baby’s brain is cradled in potions that induce sleepiness, like the low pressure of oxygen (similar to the pressure at the top of Everest), the warmth of the amniotic fluid, and the sedative cocktail, produced in the placenta and in the embryo itself, that contains substances that induce relaxation. The brain ripens in Hypnos’s cradle.

  The wake-up call for a new state of being, which takes place at birth, is mediated by a spurt of noradrenalin in the brain, which starts a new pattern of being.

  Pink Brain or Blue B
rain

  The brains of all embryos look like a female brain until the eighth week—this is the default state determined by nature. A spurt of testosterone in the eighth week initiates the transformation of some of the brains from a generic embryonic brain to a male brain.

  Nowadays, it is commonly believed that the exposure of the embryonic brain to testosterone during the development stages in the womb delays the development of the left hemisphere. Since the level of exposure in the brains of male embryos to testosterone is much higher compared to that in the brains of female embryos, the left hemisphere of male babies is less developed than the left hemisphere of female babies. Some relate this to the higher tendency of male babies to suffer from autism and dyslexia and to the high frequency of left-handedness among males.

  The Brain During Infancy

  During the first years of life, the brain is at the peak of its flexibility. The period of differentiation, during which brain maps are differentiated, takes place within a narrow window of time. The maps can also change in later periods of life, but then there is a higher price to pay in terms of time and energy. Thus, one can learn a foreign language rapidly and elegantly during early childhood, or slowly and in a cumbersome manner during adulthood.

  The brain of a newborn weighs 400 grams on average, whereas an adult’s brain weighs 1,300 grams on average, which stands for 2 percent of body weight.

  A fascinating point of view reveals that the brain of a human child undergoes, in the course of his life, a process of growth that is similar, in measurement, to the growth process of the human brain throughout two million years, from the time of our ancestors until today. Two million years ago, the volume of our ancestors’ brain was 500 cubic centimeters and resembled that of contemporary newborns. Since then, in a course, full of hardships, that lasted two million years, the volume of the brain has increased and reached 1,300 cubic centimeters—the volume of an adult brain nowadays.